Windows 10 DVD Player Free For Some

MPC-HC FTW. VLC also isn't terrible. Both are free.

Pretty soon MS will start charging to use a mouse.
 
sfsuphysics said:
So this is the point behind free windows 10? You get the OS for free, but we'll nickel and dime you on everything else?
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So this is what they meant by "Windows as a service." Meaning we'll provide a barebones OS and charge you for almost all other functionality.

Yeah, fuck all that.
 
Ur_Mom said:
For those upset or complaining about it - when was the last time you watched a DVD using Windows Media Player on your computer?

I'm guessing the number is very low and couldn't justify licensing for EVERYONE when only 1% or less actually do watch a DVD movie on their PC with WMP.

Everyone in here probably used VLC or other software, anyway.

I'm more upset about the price - $15! I don't care that they took it out, and if I HAD to, I'd have VLC.
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That's true, but I'm more concern about this direction Microsoft is taking. I may not care about Solitaire and Window's player, but if Microsoft keeps this up, eventually it's going to hit something that I do care about in the future.
 
Hypergreatthing said:
cccp/media player classic has dvd playback capability.
The bigger question is who uses windows media center?
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Every single day here. Combined with a nice antenna on the roof and I have a free DVR every month with no cable or satellite bill. ;)
 
I am a big user of Windows Media Center, or I was until they removed it. I will not be upgrading my htpc from Windows 7. It just annoys me now that I have to either remote log into my NAS so I can have it record shows, or go turn on the htpc so I can set up to record shows. I upgraded to 10, well I do game, but because I seen others download media center with Windows 10 preview. I have yet to figured out how to do it with 10. The third party programs are less than satisfactory as a replacement.
 
windows media player classic is still free and much better than the bloat biscuit they offer now for $15.

I live in the remote hills of West Virginia and run the media center at my church. For ever people used to bring in cd's for there weddings, funeral special music etc. That is very rare now even the hillbillies bring me a flash drive or a link to their cloud files.

VLC for the masses.
 
I did an upgrade from Windows 7 Ultimate to 10 Pro, didn't get the DVD Player App. Ran Windows update several times and it was still MIA. Did an upgrade from 8.1 Pro with Media Center to 10 Pro and the DVD Player app showed up after running Windows Update. Did a clean of 10 Pro on that same PC and no DVD Player App. You only get it if MC is detected on an upgrade install. It should be tied to the PC's hardware ID like activation is but its not. I'm not going to be Installing Windows 8.1 Pro, adding Media Center, and upgrading to Windows 10 everytime I need to reinstall, just to get that app. Not going to happen. Very lame way to do things IMHO.
 
Advil said:
1) DVDs are obsolete. I can't remember the last time I played a physical movie disc.
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Pretty much. Redbox and Netflix DVD rentals are in decline. DVD retail sales have peaked. Video stores are all but dead. For me, 480p upscaled on a 1080p PC monitor looks terrible. I could tolerate it 5+ years ago but now it's a pain to watch.
 
dark_reign said:
Pretty much. Redbox and Netflix DVD rentals are in decline. DVD retail sales have peaked. Video stores are all but dead. For me, 480p upscaled on a 1080p PC monitor looks terrible. I could tolerate it 5+ years ago but now it's a pain to watch.
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Yeah,

I wouldn't argue that discs in general are obsolete.

Bluray still looks and sounds the best, but it IS on physical media, and thus horribly inconvenient.

I'm just commenting on DVD's. By modern standards they are low resolution garbage. I wouldn't take them for free.
 
collegeboy69us said:
they give away software worth billions -- but then charge that much for a piece of software that's free just about anywhere else.

Even if they legally *had* to charge for it ... make it $1 as call it a day. Are they really expecting millions to cough up 15 dollars to watch a DVD on their pc?
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I believe this is the direction that operating systems will take .. sort of like an "app store" approach.. or subscription based...

pay for features.... DLC, etc.. nickel and dime you.. you know the routine..
 
I prefer Blu-Rays when possible, but I really only bother with movies I really, really enjoy. Old favorites and such.
Most of the time I'll just take whatever is on OnDemant, Netflix, Hulu, Crackle, or whatever else.
I wish MS made this an all-purpose media player or Blu-Ray player instead of a single-task DVD player. For $15, the least they could have done was to make it a seemless plugin for the Movies app instead of a separate item.
 
Hypergreatthing said:
cccp/media player classic has dvd playback capability.
The bigger question is who uses windows media center?
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My family uses windows media center all the time on our HTPC. Every TV show that gets watched runs through windows media center, including live TV and recorded shows.

Instead of a cable box or the cable company DVR, I have a HTPC with a quad tuner, 8TB of disk space, and a cable card. We also use the HTCP to play back DVD rips, home movies, vacation pictures, etc.

This PC will stay with Windows 7 for a very long time, until I either drop cable or Microsoft stops providing the TV guide.
 
Hornet said:
That's true, but I'm more concern about this direction Microsoft is taking. I may not care about Solitaire and Window's player, but if Microsoft keeps this up, eventually it's going to hit something that I do care about in the future.
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Good point, and I really hope that it doesn't go down that path. I've been wondering how they were going to monetize Windows 10. With a free upgrade, free updates, etc., it's not going to be a huge money maker for consumers (Enterprise is a different story). The nickle and diming is going to get old. So far, it's not anything I'd buy. But, like you say - eventually it's going to hit something I do care about. :/

Free is still good. And, I'd be willing to pay for the OS. But, offering the base OS for free and making you buy bits and pieces to complete it is not cool. I don't like it with many games DLC, either (large addons are fine, though... simple small things that should be part of the base game or a larger package aren't cool in DLC).
 
Domingo said:
I prefer Blu-Rays when possible, but I really only bother with movies I really, really enjoy. Old favorites and such.
Most of the time I'll just take whatever is on OnDemant, Netflix, Hulu, Crackle, or whatever else.
I wish MS made this an all-purpose media player or Blu-Ray player instead of a single-task DVD player. For $15, the least they could have done was to make it a seemless plugin for the Movies app instead of a separate item.
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I have found this as well.

As I get older I have less and less interest in movies at all. The old favorites still loom large. I just recently watched "Big Trouble in Little China" with my stepson, and my Fiance recently did not care for "They Live" or "The Shawshank Redemption" (The latter being called a dude-flick) New movies in general - however - don't interest me at all, especially when they are ripping off old TV series or Movies (Like the Mission Impossible franchise, or the new Ghost Busters) trying to ruin my childhood.

Every now and then something comes along I enjoy though. "Kingsman: the Secret Service" was fun. I also enjoyed the recent Alan Turing biopic, "The Imitation Game". It's becoming more and more rare though. Most movies these days I find to just be throwaway garbage. I can't bring myself to sit through more than 10 minutes of them.

Thing is, movies are a very passive activity. I prefer interactive activities, so if a movie is going to draw me in, it has to be VERY good.
 
Ur_Mom said:
Free is still good. And, I'd be willing to pay for the OS. But, offering the base OS for free and making you buy bits and pieces to complete it is not cool. I don't like it with many games DLC, either (large addons are fine, though... simple small things that should be part of the base game or a larger package aren't cool in DLC).
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I think any reasonable person can understand this point. However making the basic upgrade free is of much bigger impact to the average consumer than things like this that have long had great 3rd party solutions anyway. Getting Windows 10 to as many as possible will be the best way to get more apps, free, ad sponsored and paid to Windows users as the 3rd party ecosystem is really the reason most use Windows.
 
heatlesssun said:
I think any reasonable person can understand this point. However making the basic upgrade free is of much bigger impact to the average consumer than things like this that have long had great 3rd party solutions anyway. Getting Windows 10 to as many as possible will be the best way to get more apps, free, ad sponsored and paid to Windows users as the 3rd party ecosystem is really the reason most use Windows.
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This isn't much. It doesn't affect too many people. That's why they took that basic functionality out. Too much licensing costs for such little use.

But, if they continue down this road, who knows what's next. RSAT tools eventually a paid product? Powershell?

I think they are smart enough to know that would alienate too many people. But, they are already getting push back on simple things that a lot of people didn't even use or used a third party program instead....

We're starting some basic testing for deploying Windows 10 at work. One big thing - Solitaire. I need to find an alternative for it. Too many of our users use that on breaks and such. We removed games once, but had to put them back because that's what people use a lot during downtime. That's going to cause some issues. We usually stay away from third party apps unless they have a legitimate business application, but this may be an exception if we can find a simple solution.
 
Lol, paid DVD player in this day and age and for $15? These days you can get a stand alone BD player for not much more than that...Guess MS is trying to give yet another reason for people to skip Win10. Had to fix women's computers and disable Win10 distributed updates on upgraded computers because they updated.
 
Ur_Mom said:
This isn't much. It doesn't affect too many people. That's why they took that basic functionality out. Too much licensing costs for such little use.

But, if they continue down this road, who knows what's next. RSAT tools eventually a paid product? Powershell?

I think they are smart enough to know that would alienate too many people. But, they are already getting push back on simple things that a lot of people didn't even use or used a third party program instead....

We're starting some basic testing for deploying Windows 10 at work. One big thing - Solitaire. I need to find an alternative for it. Too many of our users use that on breaks and such. We removed games once, but had to put them back because that's what people use a lot during downtime. That's going to cause some issues. We usually stay away from third party apps unless they have a legitimate business application, but this may be an exception if we can find a simple solution.
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I think we can look at other free operating systems and upgrades and get the general idea where this going. Reducing costs for features like DVD playback that are either in dramatic decline or redundant due to 3rd party support is only logical. But the nickel and diming can only go as far as market constraints in the consumer market.
 
heatlesssun said:
I think we can look at other free operating systems and upgrades and get the general idea where this going. Reducing costs for features like DVD playback that are either in dramatic decline or redundant due to 3rd party support is only logical. But the nickel and diming can only go as far as market constraints in the consumer market.
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Microsoft was usually the one to buy/steal ideas or third party apps to integrate into Windows (HyperTerminal, etc.). :D Now, they are going the opposite. But, they were paying for a DVD license for every OS sold, when so little people were using it. It does make a lot of sense, really. Hell, a lot of new laptops, tablets (and even some desktops) lack an optical drive all together. Just a waste of money to include it in the OS.

Things like Solitaire will have more of an impact. End users are going to notice that right away. And, in the enterprise, that's going to be a big thing. (John has Solitaire full version, why can't I? - because he paid for it...). Maybe people won't care, though. Maybe they will accept it and just go with it as the new normal. Us IT guys and extreme users notice and bitch moreso because this is what we do. We see it daily, we use it daily and it directly impacts us and we have more interest in it. End users? Many probably have no idea that it's changed or DVD was taken out, and they never will. They just don't care. Hell, we care about some little thing in a EULA that says that Microsoft can use telemetry from Cortana for improving the feature (I don't care, it's fine with me).
 
This couldn't be more irrelevant to most users...

Most are buying laptops that don't even have an optical drive and are watching their movies on netflix...
 
Ur_Mom said:
Things like Solitaire will have more of an impact. End users are going to notice that right away.
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That's why there's Candy Crush. And there are a ton of free solitaire apps out there:http://www.komando.com/downloads/263722/free-solitaire-games/2. When it comes to casual games, while the Windows Store is lacking compared to iOS and Android, there's still a lot out there. Even solitaire apps though most do have banner ads. I do think it was a stupid for Microsoft to monetize Solitaire just because there's enough of this stuff going on for people to complain about and this just adds fuel to the fire.
 
I(illa Bee said:
handbrake.... dur....
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Still have to decrypt the DVD to be able to feed it to HandBrake, which technically is illegal - meaning the decryption - according to the DMCA, but that's a given considering it's always been illegal regardless, and another thread entirely. ;)
 
nutzo said:
So, if you are upgrading from Windows 7, make sure you install Windows Media Center before you upgrade to Windows 10.

If you are on Windows 8/8.1 and didn't get the free Windows Media Center when you upgraded from 7, you are out of luck.

Any thing else ?
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Actually when I upgraded I had to remove Media Center since it doesn't work with Windows 10
 
N1GHTRA1N said:
Actually when I upgraded I had to remove Media Center since it doesn't work with Windows 10
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Yeah. that's why you got the DVD player for free, because allegedly that's what most people used media center for.

I don't see what the big deal is, if you need it it's there. Libav is questionable on it's legality, and VLC is based in France where you can't patent software. And as it's been said, most people don't play DVDs on their machines anymore anyways.
 
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